Chapter 7: River Wild
The days after that midnight conversation in his study blurred into a rhythm Arya couldn't quite name.
Devraj didn't push. He didn't corner her in hallways or engineer reasons to touch her. He worked in his study until late, ate breakfast with her in the mornings, and spoke to her with a careful courtesy that felt almost foreign after weeks of calculated seduction. He asked about her day. He poured her coffee. He left books on her nightstand—ones he thought she might like, he said, no strings attached.
She didn't trust it.
But she didn't hate it either.
By the end of the week, she had stopped sleeping in her own room. Not because he asked her to. Because the sheets in his bed smelled like him—sandalwood and something darker, something she couldn't name—and she had grown tired of pretending she didn't notice.
They didn't have sex. He held her, his arm draped over her waist, his breath warm against her neck, and she let him. She told herself it was practical. Body heat. Comfort. Nothing more.
She was lying.
The safari came next. He told her over breakfast one morning, sliding a brochure across the table—not that she needed one. He had already booked the flights, arranged the lodge, planned every detail. She looked at the glossy photographs of elephants and acacia trees and tried to summon the energy to argue.
She didn't.
The flight to Tanzania was long. She slept through most of it, her head against his shoulder, and when she woke, his hand was resting on her thigh, thumb tracing slow circles through the fabric of her jeans. She didn't move it. She didn't want to.
The lodge was a sprawling compound of canvas and timber, perched on the edge of a ravine. Elephants moved below them like gray ghosts, their trumpets carrying on the wind. At night, the sky was so thick with stars that Arya stood on the deck for an hour just staring, her breath fogging in the cold air.
Devraj stood behind her. He didn't speak. He just wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest, and she let herself lean into him.
Three days into the safari, he took her into the forest.
The trail was narrow, barely visible through the undergrowth, and the air was thick and wet. Ferns brushed her arms. Birds she couldn't name called from the canopy. She wore the khaki shorts and linen shirt he had laid out for her that morning, the fabric already damp with sweat, clinging to her back and thighs.
He walked ahead of her, clearing branches, his shoulders broad under his own linen shirt. She watched the way his muscles moved beneath the fabric and hated herself for noticing.
They stopped at a stream to drink. He passed her the canteen, and she tipped it back, the water cold and metallic against her tongue. When she lowered it, he was already moving toward her.
His mouth found hers before she could speak.
He kissed her like he had been starving. His tongue pushed past her lips, deep and demanding, and his hand cupped the back of her head, holding her in place. She made a sound—something between protest and surrender—and he swallowed it.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dark.
"Keep walking," he said.
They stopped twice more before they reached the waterfall. Each time, he kissed her. Each time, his hand drifted lower—to the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip, the bare skin above her shorts. Each time, she let him.
Her body was a traitor.
The waterfall appeared through the trees like a dream. It cascaded down a wall of black rock, thirty feet high, into a pool so clear she could see the stones at the bottom. The mist rose in lazy curls, catching the sunlight, painting the air with rainbows.
She stood at the edge, breathless.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"It is."
He wasn't looking at the waterfall.
He stripped off his shirt. His chest was broad and tanned, silver hair curling at the center, and the muscles beneath his skin shifted as he moved. She watched him unbuckle his belt and step out of his shorts, his cock already half-hard, thick and heavy between his thighs.
"Take off your clothes," he said.
It wasn't a request.
She hesitated. The old Arya would have defied him. Would have crossed her arms and told him to go fuck himself. But the old Arya hadn't spent a week in his bed, hadn't woken up to his hand on her stomach, hadn't started to forget what it felt like to sleep alone.
She pulled her shirt over her head. She unbuttoned her shorts and let them fall. Her underwear followed. Then she stood naked in the dappled light, the mist cool on her skin, and watched his eyes travel down her body like a caress.
He stepped into the pool and held out his hand.
She took it.
The water was cold enough to steal her breath. She gasped as it hit her thighs, her stomach, her chest. Devraj pulled her deeper, until the water reached her collarbones, and then he guided her under the cascade.
The force of the water was like a thousand hands beating down on her shoulders. She closed her eyes against the spray, and his hands found her hips, his fingers digging into the flesh as he lifted her onto a slick ledge of rock.
The stone was cold against her back. The water pounded her thighs. He pushed her legs apart and stepped between them.
"This is what I've been thinking about," he said. "Every day. Every night. Since the moment I saw you."
She didn't answer. She couldn't. His hand was already between her legs, his fingers sliding through the wet heat of her pussy, spreading her open.
"You're soaked," he said. "Is that the waterfall, or are you just that fucking wet for me?"
"Shut up," she breathed.
He laughed. Low and dark.
And then he pushed inside her.
Her back arched. Her mouth opened in a sound that the water swallowed. He was thick and hot, filling her completely, and he held still for a moment, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath ragged.
"Fuck," he whispered. "You feel like heaven."
He pulled out and thrust back in. Slow at first. Deep. His hands gripped her hips, holding her steady against the rock, and his mouth found her throat, her jaw, her lips. He kissed her as he fucked her, swallowing her moans, his tongue matching the rhythm of his cock.
The water pounded down on them, oblivious to her gasps. The world beyond the curtain of the falls disappeared.
"Is this what you wanted?" He thrust harder. "To be fucked like this? To be taken?"
"This isn't—" She bit down on a moan. "This doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything."
She wanted to argue. She wanted to push him away. But his cock was hitting something deep inside her, and her body was burning, and she couldn't think. She could only feel.
He didn't stop. He fucked her through the first orgasm, his thumb circling her clit, his teeth grazing her shoulder. When she came, she felt it everywhere—her toes curling, her thighs shaking, her pussy squeezing his cock with a grip that made him groan.
"That's it," he said. "Give it to me."
He slammed into her one last time and held himself deep, his hips jerking as he came. She felt the heat of it, the flood of it, and some distant part of her mind registered that he hadn't pulled out. That he had finished inside her without asking.
He must have felt her tense, because he pulled back just enough to look at her.
"Don't," he said. "I'm clean. And you're on something. I saw the pills."
She stared at him. Her chest heaving.
"Is that supposed to make it better?"
"It's supposed to make you stop looking at me like I just fucked you against your will."
"You did."
The words hung between them, heavy and sharp.
His jaw tightened. The water continued to fall, cold and indifferent, washing the sweat from their skin. Slowly, he pulled out of her, and she felt the loss of him like a wound.
He carried her to the far side of the pool, away from the falls, where the water was still and warm. He held her against his chest, his arms locked around her, and pressed a kiss to her temple.
"You belong to me," he whispered. "You're starting to feel it, aren't you?"
She didn't answer.
She pulled free.
She waded through the water, her feet slipping on the stones, and when she reached the opposite shore, she turned to face him. Her hair was wet, plastered to her shoulders. Her skin was branded where his hands had been.
"My body is a rented room," she said. "And you're just a tenant."
His eyes darkened. His jaw tightened. But he didn't move.
"You don't believe that," he said.
"Don't tell me what I believe."
She turned her back on him and climbed out of the pool, reaching for her clothes. Her hands were shaking. Her legs were unsteady. But she didn't look back.
Behind her, the water kept falling.
And Devraj watched her with the patience of a man who had never lost a war—and the hunger of one who had just decided this battle wasn't over.